⟫Six Feet Under: A Bubbline Fanfic⟪

One: Royal Façade

Bonnibel's POV:

"Princess-"
I jumped at the sound of Peppermint Butler's voice from the lab doorway, nearly knocking over the various vials and test tubes I had full of bright and powerful chemicals before me. I swore quietly to myself, ugh of course, I'd started to nod off while working yet again.
"My apologizes Princess, I hadn't meant to startle you."
I sighed, removing the lab goggles from the top of my head before forcing a tired smile and turning around in my lab chair to face the butler. 

"Oh that's quite alright Peps, I'm just a bit jumpy tonight is all. What did you need me for?"
Peppermint smiled back at me but eyed the messy desk space behind me, covered with crumbled papers and half empty containers. I really needed to clean this place up, I liked to keep most rooms in the castle and my lab especially tidy, but lately I just couldn't bring myself to sort the mess out despite all the time I'd been spending in here. I guess I couldn't bring myself to do a lot of things these past few days really. Or had it been weeks? It was hard to say, any grasp of time I had before was gone by now, from days of breathing in heavy chemicals and little to no social interaction with anyone within or outside the Candy Kingdom. 

"I came to escort you to your sleeping chamber Princess, it's quite late after all, well past midnight, and you haven't been receiving satisfactory hours of sleep as of late. I and the other castle staff have noticed. You just stay cooped up in this lab all day, why you didn't even attend any of your royal meetings today, and-"
"I'm working on something big Peppermint Butler. Important science business."
I cut Peppermint off abruptly, the room falling silent once again as I returned to my chemical mixtures. 

Of course I wasn't REALLY working on anything big, I hadn't been for days. I knew I should get some rest, I knew I should pull it together and start attending to my royal duties, but I couldn't. Not yet. Not like this. 
"Princess, I'm worried about you. The candy people are worried about you, about their ruler."
I cringed at his words, you're letting your subjects down Bonnibel. You're letting everyone down.
"I..."
I trailed off, closing my eyes tightly as I felt tears begin to burn within them. Be strong.

"I'll go to bed within the hour Peppermint Butler, thank you. Wake me up tomorrow in time for breakfast?"
I set down the sizzling beaker and eye-drop I had in hand, peeling off my pink, latex gloves as Peppermint smiled up at me gleefully. I smiled back warmly, fakely, but of course he didn't notice that last part. No one did, and that was the way I liked it. 
"Gladly. Good to have you back m'lady, sleep well." 

I pet my loyal, striped servant once upon the head before he turned to leave my mess of a normally sterile lab room. As the door closed behind him my smile fell from my face, my eyes drooping with exhaustion, hardly open at all as I slipped my lap coat off and tossed it to the floor. I normally would have hung it up on the rack where it belonged, but with the state this room was already in what would have been the point? I shivered in only my pink tank-top and thin, lavender leggings, eager to change into something more cozy. Winter seemed to be approaching much quicker than any of us had expected. 

As I sluggishly left my lab and walked through the castle's empty halls to my bedroom, I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight. Even in just the short time I'd fallen victim to my own tiredness in the lab the only thing I'd dreamed of was her, and that was precisely what I was trying to avoid. I had worked so hard for months to try an erase her raven hair and cool, pale skin from my memory, and yet still her name was embedded in every edge of my mind and her vivid image burned my eyelids each time they closed. It wasn't meant to be this way, and yet it was, and all because of me. 

Perhaps that was why finally seeing her for the first time in a long time that Saturday night, days or weeks ago, was affecting me the way it was. It was almost laughable, really, that a single night of pretending we were strangers instead of tragic ex lovers at a royal gala was all it took to break the Princess of pink and candy and all things sweet. It'd taken Marceline months of patience to build me up and allow my skin sliced with hatred to heal from her love, and it'd taken me mere moments to break it. Break it just like I'd broken us.